Hawks hammer Magic

Orlando, FL (Sports Network) - Josh Smith had 30 points and Al Horford
finished with 26 to pace the Atlanta Hawks in a 108-76 blowout victory over
the Orlando Magic on Wednesday at Amway Center.

Both players tallied double-doubles before sitting out the fourth quarter.
Smith grabbed 10 rebounds and Horford hauled in 12 as the Hawks head into
the All-Star break with wins in seven of their last 11 games.

The Magic had finally snapped their season-worst 12-game losing streak with a
win on Sunday over the Trail Blazers, but completely unraveled against the
Hawks from the second quarter on.

Jameer Nelson and Andrew Nicholson were the only Orlando scorers in double-
figures, each posting 10 points in the team's 24th loss in 27 games.

"At the end of the day, as simple as it can be, you have to be ready to
compete every night, especially with the remaining games that we have," said
Magic coach Jacque Vaughn on the team's mindset for the second-half. "We're
going to play a lot of playoff teams, jockeying for position, and our mental
approach has to be sharp going into every game."

Only trailing 25-19 after the first period, the Magic stumbled hard in the
middle portion of the second, as they were on the wrong end of a 21-6 run,
which put them behind by 24 points with 3 1/2 minutes to go until halftime.

Horford, who had registered his double-double before the end the second
quarter, contributed nine points to the run, with his alley-oop three-point
play occurring just prior to Anthony Tolliver's triple to put Atlanta ahead
51-27.

Orlando shot just 40 percent and were outscored 32-17 in the period. With the
Hawks converting a strong 63.2 percent of their shots in the second, they
carried a 57-36 advantage at the break.

Smith, who scored the last six for Atlanta to end the first half with 15
points, tallied his fourth basket of the third near the seven-minute mark on
an alley-oop pass from Jeff Teague to expand the Hawks' advantage to 29
points.

Orlando just couldn't handle Atlanta's two most potent scorers, as Horford
soon got back in on the action as well, with him and Smith combining for 25 of
the Hawks' 33 points in the period to help create an eventual 88-51 spread.

The Magic didn't provide much resistance in the fourth, trailing by as many as
38 points before the final buzzer.

Game Notes

Atlanta improved to 20-7 on the season when scoring 100 points ... Orlando has
lost all three matchups with the Hawks this season and have dropped nine
straight in the series ... Orlando scored 46 of its points in the paint, while
shooting just 3-of-14 from 3-point range ... Magic forward Hedo Turkoglu was
suspended for 20 games prior to the contest on Monday after testing positive
for steroids.